The BRUCE BOLT Story
BRUCE BOLT is a family owned and operated business based in Austin, TX. Founder Bear Mayer started the company in 2017 as a 16-year-old baseball player who wanted better batting gloves and needed money for his first truck, a '93 Landcruiser named Jennifer.
Nearly a decade later, that same family still runs the brand. What began with one design has grown into a full lineup of batting gloves, protective gear, and compression sleeves worn by baseball players at every level, from Little League fields to Major League Baseball.
WHO IS BRUCE BOLT?
Almost everyone asks us, "Who is BRUCE BOLT?"
Actually, BRUCE is Bear's grandfather. He was an exceptional athlete and a great baseball player who just loved to compete. He still tells great stories about when he played, like the first time he took over as starting SS for his prep school's varsity team. He had 3 balls hit to him in a row. The first two were terrible errors, but the third one he turned into an unassisted triple play. That's BRUCE for you.
And the "BOLT"? Well, that's because BRUCE is one of the few people in the world who has been hit by lightning TWICE and lived to tell about it.
We figured BRUCE BOLT captured the spirit of our company, a team that appreciates every day and every moment (because you never know when you're going to get struck by lightning, again) as an opportunity to compete and BE BETTER.
BE BETTER
"Be Better" is the prevailing mantra for everything we do at BRUCE BOLT. When Bear started the company, he wanted to design the best batting gloves in baseball. But every time we'd finish a design, we'd look at it and ask, "How can it BE BETTER?" And then we'd go back to the drawing board.
We started asking that about everything. Materials, craftsmanship, packaging, operations, accounting, every new product, and even how we could give back to the baseball community.
We hope the spirit of our mission carries over to the players who use our products. We hope players wearing our gear are always asking themselves how they can "BE BETTER" whether they are playing, training, studying, spending time with family, or giving back to their community. We can never be perfect, but we can always "BE BETTER."
DESIGN, MATERIALS AND CRAFTSMANSHIP
We believe design, materials and craftsmanship are the 3 components to making anything great. Those core values apply to everything we make, from batting gloves and sliding mitts to compression sleeves and guards.
DESIGN
We studied every high-end batting glove on the market. We picked the best features from the most popular gloves and then we made ours better. Our designs were refined to consider the nuances of the human hand. For instance, we recognized the conical shape of each finger, so we cut our leather to fit tighter at the fingertip.
We also knew that the bones of the wrist don't form a straight line across the bottom of your palm, so we cut our gloves to follow the medial articulation of the wrist. Cutting the leather this way removed the unnecessary seams where the bat contacts the hand, which is a big reason our gloves last so long.
Last but not least, our "double inverse" Long Cuff design with a 360 Wrap is unlike any other on the market. Bear designed the Long Cuff gloves to provide the same support players get by taping their wrists. It's fun to watch players try these on for the first time. Once they feel the 360 Wrap around their wrist, they get it.
MATERIALS
To complement our utilitarian design, we only use 0.9mm Cabretta leather on our gloves. Cabretta leather is the softest, most durable leather in the world. Our gloves are so durable they lasted our testers an entire high school season and most of their summer select season.
Even though they are soft out of the box, the Cabretta leather forms to your hand over time. If the leather ever starts to dry out, rub leather conditioner or mink oil inside and out and they'll be good as new.
CRAFTSMANSHIP
We were fortunate to bring on a team that averages over 10 years of experience producing luxury leather products. They shaped our decisions on design and stitching to keep seams away from the areas that take the most wear, which makes our gloves feel more like driving gloves than batting gloves.
Each pair is handmade in small batches. That lets the BRUCE BOLT team strive for excellence with every pair we make. We take tremendous pride in our quality and craftsmanship. If our products don't meet your expectations, then they don't meet ours, and we'll make it right.
BEYOND THE BATTING GLOVE
The question we kept asking led us past BRUCE BOLT gloves and into the rest of the bag.
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Compression arm sleeves with graduated compression that supports the arm through a repeated throwing motion.
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Protective gear including sliding mitts, elbow guards, leg guards, and hand guards.
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Leg sleeves, bat grip tape, pine tar, leather balm, and apparel.
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Golf gloves and softball gear, because the same standards travel across sports.
We built each of those products for the same reason Bear built the first batting glove. Players told us what was missing, and we went to work on it.
GIVING BACK TO THE BASEBALL COMMUNITY
Supporting players has been part of the plan since the beginning, and the biggest step yet came in 2026. BRUCE BOLT became title sponsor of the BRUCE BOLT College Classic benefiting the Astros Foundation, the longest-running collegiate tournament of its kind, held at Daikin Park in Houston since 2001.
The multi-year naming rights agreement with the Houston Astros puts our name on a weekend that draws top-ranked programs, scouts from across Major League Baseball, and thousands of fans, with proceeds benefiting the Astros Foundation. The 2026 field brought Texas, Coastal Carolina, UTSA, Ole Miss, Baylor, and Ohio State to Houston for nine games over three days.
For a company started by a high school player, sponsoring a stage where the next wave of major leaguers gets seen is about as full circle as it gets.
THANK YOU!
BRUCE BOLT sincerely appreciates your support. We hope you love our products and tell your teammates about what we’re doing. Please follow us on Instagram @brucebolt.us and sign up for our newsletter for exclusive deals and new product announcements.
